How I spent my summer vacation, part 1: If you count Memorial Day as the "official" start of summer vacation, I spent it the first part of the evening at GAAMC, my local gay group here in New Jersey. GAAMC always holds a cookout on Memorial Day, and this year they had a pretty good turnout. As usual, I was working the front desk, but later in the evening I did Challenge stuffing -- that task where the newsletter is put in envelopes, and the envelopes are then labeled, stamped, and sealed. (Mailing occurs the next morning.)

Then Bill-the-Honeybear and I went home, and I was going to do a little packing for my trip to Disney World for Gay Day...until I ran my foot into a protruding corner in the bedroom, and my 4th and 5th toes, which used to look like this ll turned into this l/. We rushed to the local emergency room, where after about an hour a doctor came in, looked at it, took some X-rays, and pronounced my right little toe fractured. Now, they don't put it in a cast, and they don't have teeny tiny splints for toes, so the 4th and 5th toes were taped together -- the 4th toe acting as the splint -- gave me a pair of crutches and a prescription for percoset, and sent me home.

The next day I saw my regular doctor, who said I could use my lovely sturdy walking stick instead of the crutches, but otherwise confirmed all the emergency room doctor said to me.

Next stop, Orlando: I had my plane ticket, I had my room reservation, and since I was in no pain (this even without the percosets) I was off to Disney World. My doctor said I should rent a wheelchair, and WDW has these lovely little electric carts for rent, so I flew down on Thursday and by Friday was toodling around the parks like a pro. It doesn't hurt that the entrance lines for handicapped people -- and I qualified, being in one of those scooters -- are much shorter than those for the non-handicapped.

But then came Sunday, and a minor disaster. I was exiting the new boat ride in the Mexico pavilion at Epcot (and let me tell you, the new boat ride is only marginally better than the old boat ride, which was arguably the most boring ride in all of Disney World), riding my scooter through the handicapped exit gate. The scooter pushed the gate open, but as I was going through I didn't catch the gate in time, and its metal endpost rammed into my left knee -- leaving a bruise and an ache that even percoset couldn't completely get rid of. Still, I could move around (slower, yes, but still moving), so I finished up my day, went back to my room, and rested.

Monday, the plan took off an hour late, arrived about 20 minutes late; Bill-the-Honeybear picked me up, we had dinner, and went home. And that's my beginning-of-summer story...